SIXTH COLUMN

We moved almost a year ago from Google and Blogger to TypePad. Now we have changed our name and expanded what we are doing. Since a significant number of readers use this site daily, we need to keep everyone current.

Our new blog is now known as Brushfires of Freedom. It moved over with the same name as this blog, namely Sixth Column, until mid-May 2007. Please note, however, that although the name changed, the blog url and email addresses stayed the same--to minimize confusion and people not finding us. Also, please note that our website, 6th Column Against Jihad, has neither changed name or address.

Brushfires of Freedom has a couple of auxiliary blogs: The New Enlightenment and Nous America. Each operates hand in glove with Brushfires. Nous American, however, focuses on the thises and thats of our culture, such as movies, television, art matters, cultural vexations and kudos. The New Enlightenment parallels Brushfires of Freedom with exploration of the ideas which further and those which sabotage our culture. We expanded the focus of Brushfires at the time of the name change so that we could deal with more than Islamic and illegal alien matters. Both of these topics are as important as ever, but the fifth columns work numerous venues, and we as a sixth column have a lot of territory to cover in service to America. We will still be going after Islamic matters and illegal matters.

We are very proud of two new blogs. Our long time friend and colleague Eleanor now has her own blog, Eleanor Duckwall's Spotlight. She finds the best articles and puts her unique interpretation to them. Our colleague Cubed has started her educationally focused blog, Project Education Renovation, in order to get the right stuff out where it really counts, before kids become stick-in-the-mud adults.

As of 1 July 2006, Sixth Column has fully relocated to its new address (http://sixthcolumn.typepad.com/sixth_column/). Same name, different url. The old, Blogger site is being retained solely for readers missing earlier moving announcements to learn our new address, and to keep the archives available. We anticipate keeping this old site available for a few weeks until we relocated the archives to our website 6th Column Against Jihad.

It is time once more for another treatment for the cognitively blind. You know, there's psychogenic blindness, ocular blindness, and cortical blindness. The worst and most wide-spread is cognitive blindness.

Cognitive blindness refers to that huge gaggle of people who either will not see or will not allow themselves to see the facts of reality. Some will tell themselves that what they see cannot be true, but most will tell themselves that they will not allow themselves to see what they do not want to be true.

Reality, nevertheless, marches on. Overnight, seven ne'erdowells were arrested in the most inappropriately named "Liberty City" section of Miami, Florida. (If there ever was a place to insert the tube to give the earth an enema, Liberty City would be it.)

Why? The are a terror cell. They are made of the homegrown and a few Haitian imports. Among other targets, they wanted to take down the Sears Tower in Chicago and precipitate a state of total war within America.

Although they swore allegiance to Al Qaeda, they are not Al Qaeda.

They are, however, converts to ISLAM. Now watch the cognitively blind head for their blinders and eye patches not to see Islam as THE COMMON DENOMINATOR in all of this so-called "terror."

It is not some adjectivized Islam, such as "radical" Islam. No siree, it is just plain Islam, just as it has been all along. Islam unites all these ne'erdowells worldwide, from all flavors of culture.

So, for today, here is the treatment for the cognitively blind. Repeat:

Only the comatose could not know about the seizure, torture, mutilations and deaths of the two American soldiers recently in the Sunni Triangle of Iraq. Every effort made by our military to gather intelligence from the indigenous population of the seizure area has been met by stony silence. Conversely, most Americans--not the pansy Left--want blood and action to avenge our soldiers, while the vicious bad guys watch to see if we are going to stand up for ourselves. So far, the Bush administration, including the DoD, have done nothing and said only the equivalent of "Tsk, tsk, what a shame."

What Al-Qaeda did to our soldiers brought the entire Bush expedition in Iraq to its MOST CRITICAL POINT.

What we do at this point, or opportunity, will determine our ENTIRE FUTURE in Iraq and the Middle East. Call this point what you will, but the name "tipping point" names it superbly.

More of the usual from Bush et al, a la "just war theory," and we may as well come home now. We will have lost and guaranteed fighting Islam and its jihad on the streets of America. (And, no, Bill O'Reilly, this is not "theoretical.")

We will be perceived--correctly--as a toothless, senescent, and weak tiger, easily defeated, just by persistence. This type of response will guarantee that we will bleed much more money and squander many more troops through maiming and death to no good end. Once again, we will have committed national suicide on the altar of righteous, self-sacrificial service to others. While such sacrifice makes far too many Americans glow in inner warmth, it handcuffs our fighting and national security because it keeps us from pursuing our own highly appropriate and proper national self-interest. We might as well throw our personnel and money into Uday's infamous people shredder.

If we punish the holy hell out of these Sunnis, we will be able to pull off a win--despite Bush, DoD, State Department, and all of the "just war theory" stuffed generals. We should have already begun meting out severe and unremitting punishment to take away their will to fight and support the fighting.

Iraq has come down to this tipping point. It has come down to one final roll of the dice, thanks to all the bungling since March 2003. Iran and North Korea are watching, as is the rest of Islamia.

If we are to fight, we must fight to win decisively and quickly through total war. That is what a truly "just war" means.

Iraq rides now fully on the near term behavior of G. W. Bush and his ilk.

The tortured bodies of two of our soldiers were found in Iraq days after they were set up and kidnapped. Many speculate that they were beheaded, and Bill O'Reilly said that their eyes had been gouged out. While DNA studies are always done on the bodies of military people killed in battle, there has been further speculation that the degree of mutilation that they suffered was so great that DNA tests were required to be sure of their identity. Unless their fingers were cut off too, making fingerprinting impossible, and unless their teeth were removed, it is quite probable that identification was made through prints or dental records even if their appearance was otherwise severely altered by their captors.

Many of us imagine that the MSM are merely trying to "protect our sensibilities" by failing to report on the details of such incidents.

What is happening is, in fact, is an attempt by the Politcally Correct crowd to hide from us those details so that we don't get so angry that we will demand justice for the murderers.

After all, if we became angry enough, we might even recall that these "people" were never signatories to any of the Geneva Conventions. We might further remember that we have never officially declared war against Islam, "the enemy who must not be named."

Does this mean that we have to descend to their contemptably primitive level of thought and behavior? Of course not; but neither does it mean that we have to wear gloves so as not to sully their War Manual while handing them out in our retention centers.

Common sense is beginning to assert itself here and there; who knows - if we can get someone like Tom Tancredo into the Oval Office by 2008, maybe we can even stop the sacrifice of the United States on the altar of the North American Union!

Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) announced Friday that the House Immigration Reform Caucus (IRC), which he chairs, is now more than 100 Members strong. When Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-CA) was sworn into office last week, he immediately re-joined the caucus and he was joined by Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-OH), Rep. John Campbell (R-CA), Rep. Sam Johnson (R-TX), Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY) and Rep. Charlie Bass (R-NH).

Rep. Tancredo stated, "As the IRC has grown, so has the illegal immigration issue in Americans' consciousness. When I started the Caucus in 1999, we had few friends and allies in Congress. Today, the IRC is one of the largest and most active caucuses in the House. Our size and the force of our arguments dictate that we have a seat at the table."

If one of these House Members represents you, call their office to thank them for standing with 100 other Members of the House who want our borders secured and to end illegal immigration!

Just as he did with the scandalous agreement arrived at behind closed doors, out of sight of the Congress and the people of the United States, whereby contracts for the managment of several major port facilities would have been quietly handed over to the Islamic state of Dubai, President Bush is now quietly trying to sneak past us measures that would effectively destroy the sovereignty of the United States.

This time, he is racing to complete the creation of the North American Union, a single political-economic-military fusion of Mexico, Canada, and the United States. Passports would no longer be needed, the currencies of each country would be replaced by the "Amero," US institutions would be reborn as a single North American Union banking system, a single court/justice system, a single military system, a single executive system, a single customs office, and a single North American Union parliamentary group.

Fortunately, at least one Congressman, Tom Tancredo (R-CO) is paying attention. Here's what he's trying to do for us:

Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., is demanding the Bush administration fully disclose the activities of an office implementing a trilateral agreement with Mexico and Canada that apparently could lead to a North American union, despite having no authorization from Congress.

Topics: Baylor, CFR, Council on Foreign Relations, Building a North American Community, illegal immigration, open borders, American Republic.

As WND reported, the White House has established working groups, under the North American Free Trade Agreement office in the Department of Commerce, to implement the Security and Prosperity Partnership, or SPP, signed by President Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox and then-Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin in Waco, Texas, on March 23, 2005. The groups, however, have no authorization from Congress and have not disclosed the results of their work despite two years of massive effort within the executive branches of the U.S., Mexico and Canada.

Tancredo wants to know the membership of the SPP groups along with their various trilateral "memoranda of understanding" and "other agreements" reached with counterparts in Mexico and Canada. Tancredo's decision has been endorsed by Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minuteman Project. "It's time the Bush administration to come clean," Gilchrist told WND. "If President Bush's agenda is to establish a new North American union government to supersede the sovereignty of the United States, then the president has an obligation to tell this to the American people directly. The American public has a right to know."

Geri Word, who heads the SPP office, told WND the work had not been disclosed because, "We did not want to get the contact people of the working groups distracted by calls from the public." WND can find no specific congressional legislation authorizing the SPP working groups nor any congressional committees taking charge of oversight. Many SPP working groups appear to be working toward achieving specific objectives as defined by a May 2005 Council on Foreign Relations task force report, which presented a blueprint for expanding the SPP agreement into a North American union that would merge the U.S., Canada and Mexico into a new governmental form.

I just came back from visiting a site that is proposing a project that may interest many of you. "D" is recruiting 2996 volunteers, each of whom would create a tribute to one of the victims of the 9/11 attack; these will be posted as a memorial on September 11, 2006.

I have copied information from the site, and invite you to visit it too:

The project has progressed quite a bit from the time of this post.For up to date information on 2,996 visit the 2,996 blog.

Original post follows:

2,996 is an effort to bring together 2,996 bloggers in a massive memorial to the victims of 9/11.On September 11, 2006, the 5th anniversary of the attacks, 2,996 bloggers will each post a memorial to one victim. We will remember the innocent victims of that day–we will not remember the murderers.

I’ve set up a page devoted to this tracking this effort: http://www.dcroe.com/2996. And over the next week or two, I’ll be adding news and a participants list to the page to give everyone a place to go for information about 2,996.

How can you join? Leave a comment, here or at the original post, and I’ll assign you a person killed on 9/11. Then all you need to do is post a tribute to that person on September 11, 2006.I still need a good bit of helpI need graphics…specifically:

1. A graphic or button to drop into sidebars.2. A banner.3. Something tasteful for the 2,996 page.

But most of all I need publicity. Right now I have about 50 volunteers. That’s a little bit less that 2% of the total needed. Luckily there are still 97 days until 9/11 so there is still time to get more bloggers to join.

Thanks. I thank those who submitted suggestions for names for this project. I went with a suggestion from Jeni because I felt it had a great impact.

I also am thankful to those of you who have helped out by posting about this initiative on your own blogs.

This is still a long way from happening, but I hope I/we can pull it off. I think it would be an inspiring way to remember so much of what was important about 2,996 unique individuals.

A friend who just got this email forwarded a copy to me. It speaks for itself, and IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO US ALL.

Breaking news on the Senate amnesty bill----

House leadership just announced that they will not succumb to pressure from the Senate to fast-track the amnesty bill. Instead House Speaker Hastert says the House will conduct "field hearings" on the amnesty bill. Hastert said, "I'm not putting any timeline on this thing, but I think we need this thing done right."

This is great news. House leaders are saying that we must secure the borders first and are resisting the Senate rush to amnesty.

We have included the information about Grassfire.org for completeness. We were unaware of the organization until now. However, Grassfire is not the point--this immigration bill is! We have to make sure that it gets done right. Please put your shoulder to this wheel.

The following was posted as a comment to our moving-to-a-new-address announcement. As a comment, it may be missed, even though it is big. It offers too much to risk being missed, so we are making it a full blog.The statement indicates that it was written by "...a concerned group of current and former UN employees," and at the end of this statement is person and address to contact. It urges action today on our parts to contact our representatives and senators, not to "reform" the UN, were that possible, but to: "Ask your Senators and Congressman to create a NEW organization that can lead the world well into the 21st Century."Read it and pass it along. We despise the United Nations because we see it for the evil that it is. Let's starve it of funds, kick it out of the USA, end our membership. IF we join some new conglomerate of nations, let us capitalize on the horrible errors in principle and in fact involved with the UN.It will take five minutes to read this and another five minutes to take action, proposed below. Please don’t ignore this, and please send it to friends and family. Your action could literally change the world.Recently Mark Malloch Brown, deputy Secretary General of the United Nations, said that "Middle America" did not know how the US is constructively engaged with the UN because of UN detractors and too much unchecked UN-bashing and stereotyping over too many years. Friends, the UN deserves to be bashed and bashed hard.Please allow us to give you a glimpse into how the United Nations is run: Hirings and promotions routinely violate UN rules (and are illegal under most national laws) and revolve around patronage and whom one knows rather than professional qualifications. Poorly performing managers are simply moved into different management slots while others are placed in senior positions solely because of their nationality, or because of favors owed to them by their supervisors or colleagues.Salaries for UN employees are free of taxes and come with six weeks vacation, 11 holidays, 10 sick days that are often used as vacation, plus 4 weeks of “home leave”, rental and housing grants to supplement an already generous salary (we all make an average of $7,000-$10,000 a month tax free), a pension at 8% of salary times years of service that can be cashed out tax free at any time, and educational subsidies for children of UN employees. Many also participate in an "alternative work schedule" in which they get every other Friday off. But don't even try to apply. Your application will not be acknowledged nor will you ever get invited for a job interview. You must know someone to work at the UN (or worse, sleep with them).Several of us have advanced degrees in management and have been trained to manage large public organizations, yet we are blocked from advancing by bureaucrats in their 50s with no management training, education, or experience - only sitting in their chairs because they are friends with someone in a higher position. We threaten them because they know they are there based only on their connections.And there is a profound lack of accountability within the UN regarding budget and resource allocation, resulting in loss of millions upon millions each year through skimming, graft and corruption. Simple procurement that would normally take five minutes using modern technology systems takes 2-3 months in the UN. And many United Nations Development Program country offices pay "local experts" outrageously high sums of money for products of dubious quality. Such contracts would never be made by other international aid agencies such as USAID that have much stronger internal controls and oversight.We are all familiar with outrageous examples of scandals within the UN system, and yet time and again the scandal is covered up. In fact, a re[...]

Folks,Because of the time zone I live in, I sometimes miss things that you in earlier zones pick up on hours earlier. This morning, I woke up to the frothing of the mouth of our beloved local radio talk show host, who was angry at the Dixie Chicks for something (I couldn't tell exactly what it was) - again. When I was finely able to come and check the blog, I saw Eleanor's post (republished here in its entirety!), and understood immediately what our radio talk show host was upset about.Here's Eleanor's post:"Did you hear about the Dixie Chicks, girl band that is 'sickened by American patriotism'? They don't understand how one can 'love the whole country' and why 'patriotism is necessary' or 'why people care about patriotism.'"Ever wonder how it is that these three pretty, talented, wholesome-looking American girls happened to have such hostile attitudes towards the country of their birth (to say nothing of the opportunity if afforded them to earn such a very nice living), despite what they observe here and around the world? And make no mistake about it; they really DO think that "patriotism" is sick, they really DON'T understand the idea of pride of nation, and they MEAN it when they say they don't care about our country.These girls are the most successful products and examples of the American educational system. I kid you not; it's no state secret; they got their hatred for patriotism, for love of country, for pride of nation, straight from the classrooms of our school system. Those of you who visit this blog fairly often know just what I think of the American educational system.You also know that several of us have been posting things about the increasing awareness of many people about the growing influence of the UN in the United States, an unattractive appeal that many in government and in the population have developed for the "sensitivity" about whether other nations "approve" of what we do, or whether they "like" us. The UN and other like-minded individuals and institutions value 1) the "One World" idea, 2) the soon-to-be-established (2010) North American Union, 3) the fact that the borders between Mexico, the US, and Canada do not, in fact, exist, 4) the disarming of private citizens of the U.S., and more recently, 5) the desire to make homeschooling difficult or even illegal.These issues are all related to each other and to the hostile attitude of the Dixie Chicks.Instead of just telling you "our educational system played a very strong role in teaching the Dixie Chicks this U.S.-hating attitude," I'll put down a few historical snippets and some quotes from the academic and government establishments for you to consider.I think that this material would make a great sci-fi movie about our future; it's absolutely Orwellian, or like the story "Logan's Run," or Ayn Rand's novella, "Anthem."First, there are growing numbers of people - I am one of them - who are alarmed at the increasing pace and SNEAKINESS with which the One World concept is being implemented. It is not uncommon for the government to conclude unpopular deals in smoke-filled back rooms when they know that the people will oppose them. Remember the Dubai Ports fiasco, and how we, the "little people," didn't find out about it until it was literally days from becoming a done deal? (By the way, that deal is still waiting in the wings until we "little people" with our "short attention spans" forget about it, and it can be quietly slipped past us like the Doncaster deal was shortly afterwards. As you recall, Doncaster's is a British company that makes sensitive items for the Department of Defense, and was sold to Dubai while we were breathing a sigh of relief that our ports hadn't been handed over to the Muslims, and while we were distracted by the problem of illega[...]

There is a Muslim who writes me from time to time. His approach is respectful, and I applaud him for that. However, he is solidly ossified cognitively into Islam.Today I got another one of his messages, in which he attempts to soften my stand on Islam. The email chain follows as an example of how hard it is to budge someone from a BELIEF SYSTEM once they incorporate it into their psyche.The message to me is that the rational can successfully turn off Islam only by getting to the children at a very young age. On our website, Cubed and I, in several articles (here, here, and here), have been exploring what Islam does to the forming minds of children to ensure its perennial success. To the best of our awareness, the available materials on Islam deal only with the fully formed Muslim and not with the formative forces, except Raphael Patai's The Arab Mind (reviewed here). We will continue to publish on our website how Islam deforms children's minds and why that produces the refractory adolescent and adult Muslims who actively or passively support killing us.18 June 2006Salam (Peace) Mr. George,sorry for the late reply.i sense from your reply that you have a great misunderstanding about islam & muslims, i know it`s the result of the media which only focuses on the negative side, where each society has that side.but to judge on a belief we should search the teachings of that belief, we can`t judge it by the acts of some followers, by that , we would not use our brains properly, to distinguish between right & wrong.there are some who understand things in a wrong way, or maybe try to assure a certain thought in order to ruin the image of islam (i mean the muslims who understand islam the wrong way)while the real islam calls for peace, love & justice.you are saying that the moderate muslims have been interred, have you have visited a muslim society? have you even visited a muslim country? have you ever dealt with muslims?you can`t judge based on TV & news , i call you to explore islam from it`s original source & try to be fair without a pre-judgment.thank you very muchSalam (Peace)IWG 50 M1 ======================Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2005 06:04:14 -0700From: 6thCAJ & Sixth Column To: IWG 50 M1 Subject: Re: I know that, my article may be unusual ,butit might be useful. PLEASE read itSir,You wrote: "I know that, my article may be unusual ,but it might be useful. PLEASE read it."I read it. I found nothing unusual about it. I failed to find it useful in any way.Your article is Islamic propaganda. It spins the same set of kitmanisms that a number of Muslims would like for non-Muslims to think that Islam really is. Alas, I have read Islamic materials in breadth and depth, covering the Muhammadan times to the present, and I watch the news.However much syrup Muslims pour over Islam, they can never disguise its fundamental toxicity. What the world needs is a radical Islamectomy. Muslims have made us realize that the only peaceful and trustworthy Muslims have been interred.--George Mason==============On 7/6/05, IWG 50 M1 wrote:> I know that, my article may be unusual ,but it mightbe useful. PLEASE read> it ________________________________>> What is Islam¿>> ISLAM AND MUSLIM> The name of this religion is Islam, the root of which is Silm and Salam which means peace. Salam may also mean greeting one another with peace. One of the beautiful names of God is that He is the Peace. It means more than that: submission to the One God, and to live in peace with the Creator, within one's self, with other people and with the environment. Thus, Islam is a total system of living. A Muslim is supposed to live in peace and harmony with all these segments; hence, a Muslim is any person anywhere in the world whose obedience, alle[...]

Did you hear about the Dixie Chicks, girl band that is "sickened by American patriotism"? They don't understand how one can "love the whole country" and why "patriotism is necessary" or "why people care about patriotism".

Hattip: Michelle Malkin. Besides this one, Michelle also includes a variety of patriotic pix that are sure to turn the Chicks collective stomachs.

Who's bright idea was this: "Citizenship class is taught to think like a terror cell...

Teaching packs entitled 9/11: The Main Chance, which invite pupils to imagine organising a terrorist attack, have been distributed to schools running the Government’s much-vaunted citizenship classes.

One worksheet asks the pupils to imagine what terrorist targets there are in their neighbourhoods. They have then to suggest what weapons and methods should be used to ensure the most effective results.

At the end of the worksheets, which are funded through the Government’s neighbourhood renewal programmes, a number of links to other terrorism-related articles are listed including one on food terrorism and how fast-food chains, for example, could be attacked. Another article is headlined “How safe is our water?” A series of links to websites on the September 11 atrocity, in which 2,986 people were killed when al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked and crashed four planes, are also listed on the worksheets.

Many of the sites propound outlandish conspiracy theories on the atrocity including the suggestion that the American military shot down flight United 93.

Another link takes pupils to a website which suggests that Dick Cheney, the US Vice-President, directed the attacks, while another “news” website the worksheets encourage pupils to visit includes references to images of Satan appearing in smoke over the Twin Towers on September 11.

Tim Window, one of the creators of 9/11: The Main Chance, said that the packs had been used with great success at a pupil referral unit he works at in East London before they were introduced across the borough of Waltham Forest.

Mr Window denied that the packs were culturally insensitive and said that they were about teaching pupils to bring “impartial and unbiased information” to a subject.

After the publication by the Government of the “narrative” into the July 7 bombings, Bill Rammell, the Higher Education Minister, said that citizenship classes should be used to give pupils a stronger sense of British identity.

He said that teaching all children about British culture and traditions would allow Muslim children to integrate better into society.

How can simulating terrorism and assassination "help Muslim children to integrate better into society"? The developers of this program must have gone to same school as those that created JFK Reload, the game that simulates the assassination of JFK and gives players an opportunity to learn assassination decisions and techniques.

The premise of the film "Who Killed the Electric Car" makes you shake your head and wonder which idiots took these cars off the road, cancelled the program and set the United States down the road of foreign-oil dependence. One doesn't have to be rocket scientist to guess that the big oil and car companies and their satellites, some of whom are foreign governments, influenced the demise of the electric care and created the energy and political quagmire in which we find ourselves today. I hate to say it: the authors of this decision are guilty of gross stupidity and perhaps, treason.The film chronicles how GM developed and launched a fleet of silent, aerodynamic electric vehicles to meet California's zero-emissions mandate. The shapely two-seaters with a GM logo enjoyed a brief ride in California and Arizona from 1996 until 2003, when they were taken off the market and destroyed. (GM says it was concerned about safety; others say the company wanted to head off the loss of proprietary secrets.) Paine was one of the original drivers. The director started to make a comedy about Los Angeles drivers going nutty over cars, but the project turned serious after he encountered perfectly drivable EV1s being crushed and shredded at the Mesa Proving Grounds in Arizona.In the film, images of President Bush and Vice President Cheney set a political tone, although California regulators set standards for zero emissions that forced automakers, including Honda and Toyota, to experiment with electric cars. Ralph Nader weighs in. So do Mel Gibson and Tom Hanks, who drove EV1s.The car evolved from the Impact concept car developed by Paul MacCready's AeroVironment team. Every one of its 2,000 parts was unique. The engine whirred, rather than roared, but spewed no emissions; there was no gear-shifting; and drivers talk of the car's torque with awe.The first wave of cars, including the Smithsonian's, could travel 52 miles on a charge of four to six hours; the second-generation cars used a nickel metal hydride battery, which increased the range to about 125 miles. Cars were leased, rather than sold, by Saturn dealers, with monthly costs from $350 to more than $500.The film presents the EV1 as an answer to global warming, pollution, unrest in the Middle East and rising gasoline prices.Instead, California changed its emissions laws and automakers could again pursue nonelectric technology. GM, which had spent more than $1 billion on the EV1, says it halted production of the vehicle because there were only 800 paying customers.Electric-car activists contend that GM ignored a waiting list of 5,000 because achieving success with the EV1 threatened to make the rest of GM's cars look bad.Phil Karn, a vice president for technology at Qualcomm in San Diego, drove the Smithsonian's car for two years. He leased a second one, commuting 11 miles each way to work without recharging issues. When the car was reclaimed, he says, it felt like losing a family pet."It made no sense to us," he said by phone. "The only way we can figure is, they built this car to fail . . . or the anti-EV1 faction inside GM won."What bothers Karn the most is the idea that a bold new chapter in autos ended so abruptly. "We thought it was the beginning of something new," Karn said. "It may not have been the perfect car, but it looked like the beginning of something new."GM's Barthmuss compares the launch of the EV1 with the debut of the iPod, only with far fewer customers. "We, in our heart of hearts, believe we did the right thing," he says. "The EV1 experience demonstrated to California regulators that battery technology was not going to advance further. It was only going to appeal[...]

Is the handwriting on the wall?Uh, oh. A standing army at the UN that "would trump the security council," that would be a rapid response to " 'take action to prevent war and dire threats to human security and human rights' within 48 hours of UN authorization." I don't like the sound of that. Who decides what is a "dire threat" and we already know that the UN has decided that the right of free association, thought, and action in lieu of parental control are human rights and that the UN has decided that not allowing individuals to have dangerous weapons that could hurt others (small arms: guns,knives) is a human right. Could a standing force appear at my door to demand that my children attend school or that I surrender my steak knives? What about the payment of international taxes? Would I be forced by this entity to ante up for the UN? UNITED NATIONS, New York - June 16, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A book launched at the United Nations headquarters today proposes a permanent standing UN army with "rapid reaction capability" under the sole direct command of the UN. The proposals stem from A United Nations Emergency Peace Service to Prevent Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity, envisioning a standing UN army that would "take action to prevent war and dire threats to human security and human rights" within 48 hours of UN authorization.According to the book, the need for a UN Emergency Peace service stems from "the international community's failure to stop genocide in Rwanda in 1994 and to avert 'ethnic cleansing' occurring in the Darfur region of Sudan." The book hinges the need for this independent UN army on the claim that the UN has "no capacity to avert such catastrophes", even though UN forces on the ground in Rwanda were ordered not to interfere in the 1994 genocide, despite the pleadings of Gen. Romeo D'Allaire to intervene in the massacres.Unlike previous proposals for a UN army, these latest proposals call for an army consisting of troops that would not be accountable to any nation or state, but completely remain under the auspices of the United Nations in order to increase response time to humanitarian crises such as "genocide" or "gross violations of human rights". The UN force would consist of 12,000 to 15,000 "civilian, police, judicial, military, and relief professionals" composed of "individually recruited" volunteers from many countries, which means that this army "within a single command structure" would have direct loyalty to the UN, "avoiding divided loyalties."These forces would have to incorporate "gender sensitivities" and "gender training" in compliance with UN resolution 1325. This UN force would be in the payroll of the UN like UN civil servants, and estimates for the project's startup are 2 billion dollars with an estimated annual cost of 900 million dollars. According to the report, "the UN Emergency Peace Service would, for the first time in history, offer a rapid, comprehensive, internationally legitimate response to crisis."The book emphasizes that the Security Council would be the most likely group to authorize this UN army, followed next by the UN General Assembly, or "a regional international organization." In one proposal for a more rapid response, in order to bypass a veto, the Secretary General could authorize the intervention of the UN Emergency Peace Service in a region without the deliberation of the Security Council or the General Assembly. In this scenario, the Security Council could only revoke the deployment of the UN army by passing a resolution according to normal procedures, meaning a veto would continue the deployment of UN troops.The creation o[...]

Nothing surprises me anymore. The U.N. is influencing U.S. lawmakers and international law is influencing the courts as some judges are "looking to international law for precedence" to influence decisions. Could our rights under the Constitution become a thing of the past? Anything is possible.The U.N. will gather in New York City this July for the 2006 Small Arms Review Conference. Doesn’t the name alone make you nervous? The U.N. is “reviewing” guns. If you don’t own one, doesn’t it make you want to go out and buy one just so you can be ready for whatever Kofi’s got planned?Wayne LaPierre is plenty nervous, which is why he’s written, “The Global War on Your Guns: Inside the U.N.’s Plan to Destroy the Bill of Rights.” Sound alarmist?His critics think so, claiming that the aim of the conference and its supporters is only to deal with the “illicit” sale of small arms, so it would have no effect on any legally traded arms. But check out the U.N.'s own explanation and see what you think (emphasis mine):By unanimously adopting the UN Programme of Action to address the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons (UNPoA), in 2001, the UN Member States committed to collecting and destroying illegal weapons, adopting and/or improving national legislations that would help criminalize the illicit trade in small arms, regulating the activities of brokers, setting strict import and export controls, taking action against violators of such laws, and better coordinating international efforts to that end.Sounds like there’s some wiggle room in there to me. I got to talk to LaPierre, executive vice president and chief executive officer of the National Rifle Association, about his new book and the new fight facing gun owners.LaPierre has been charting the U.N. gun-ban movement since the mid-1990s, when all of the nuclear freeze non-governmental organizations (NGOs) morphed into gun-ban groups and “hijacked the disarmament machinery of the United Nations,” he said. The philosophy of these groups, LaPierre said, is that the right to own a gun should be solely the right of governments, and they despise the fact that the United States remains a country in which private citizens can keep a handgun at their bedsides.In a recent debate LaPierre did with Rebecca Peters, who is heading up the NGOs’ gun-ban efforts, Peters told him that Americans need to give up on the notion of self-defense because it’s something that only happens in movies.The problem is, of course, that a disarmed people can do nothing when its armed government or militias turns on it. The U.N. has no response about what to do about that, LaPierre said, citing the Tutsis in Rwanda, the people of Darfur, and the Muslims of Bosnia.“All they offer is a global socialist fantasy…If there were no guns, there would be no poverty, there would be no child hungry, there would be no violence. It’s the same global socialist fantasy we saw in the 20th century, “ he said. “Under the U.N. gun-ban policy, they have no solution for when the government goes bad; they have no answer for how to be liberated from a tyrant or a dictator; they have no answer for what oppressed people should do…Their whole philosophy is give up your arms and your freedoms and we’ll protect you.”But why should we be scared in the U.S., I asked him. Doesn’t our Constitution override any international treaty the U.N. could impose upon us?According to LaPierre, the U.N. plans can find their way into America in one of several ways. A treaty would require approval by two thirds of the Senate. An internatio[...]

Paul Belian, "distinguished editor of the free market blog The Brussels Journal, journalist, author, holder of a PhD, fluent in three languages was "summoned for interrogation" again. This time he was not tagged for disseminating divergent ideas but for....homes-schooling his children!Belian's wife, Professor Alexandra Colen, "holds an MA in Linguistics (University of Reading, UK) and a doctorate in Germanic Philology (University of Ghent, Flanders, has lectured at the universities of Antwerp and Ghent and is the author of A Syntactic and Semantic Study of English Predictive Nominals and co-author of Vale Dale Groot Woordenboek Engles Nederlands (Van Dale Comprehensive English to Dutch Dictionary) and other linguistic books," is also not considered qualified to teach her own children.Why? According to this report: they refuse to sign an oath..."respecting the respect (sic) for the fundamental human rights and cultural values of the child itself and of others": they defy multiculturalism and political correctness. (Convention on the Rights of the Child)"But this is not just a matter of berserker Eurobureaucrats. Belian and Colen are publicly critical of the New European State. The Brussels Journal blieves in liberty and free markets. Such ideas cannot be allowed to flourish in Europe."Could it happen here. This blog previously posted information about the threat directed at home-schooling by international law. (More information is made available at the Home-schoolers Legal Defense Association site.)Last month Michael Farris, the chairman of the American Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), warned that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child could make homeschooling illegal in the U.S., even though the US Senate has never ratified this Convention.According to some activist judges the UN Convention is “customary international law. [...] The fact that virtually every other nation in the world has adopted it has made it part of customary international law, and it means that it should be considered part of American jurisprudence.”Under the Convention severe limitations are placed on parents’ right to direct and train their children. Under Article 13 parents could be subject to prosecution for any attempt to prevent their children from interacting with material they deem unacceptable. Under Article 14 children are guaranteed “freedom of thought, conscience and religion” – in other words, children have a legal right to object to all religious training. And under Article 15 the child has a right to “freedom of association.”Michael Farris pointed out that in 1995 “the United Kingdom was deemed out of compliance” with the Convention “because it allowed parents to remove their children from public school sex-education classes without consulting the child.” The HSLDA chairman said that, “by the same reasoning, parents would be denied the ability to homeschool their children unless the government first talked with their children and the government decided what was best. Moreover, parents would no longer have the right to bring up their children according to their own philosophical or religious beliefs, as the government, following the guidelines of a UN “committee of experts” would determine what religious teaching, if any, served the child’s best interest.”[...]Under the Convention severe limitations are placed on parents’ right to direct and train their children. Under Article 13 parents could be subject to prosecution for any attempt to prevent their children from interacting with material the[...]

Why is the "terrorism cadre" mostly inhabited by young males? Jennifer Wells at Toronto Star reviews the research: [Lionel] Tiger is the Darwin Professor of Anthropology at Rutgers University. His seminal work, Men in Groups, published in 1969, coined the term "male bonding" — surely one of the catchiest catchphrases of all time — and he has remained at the forefront of research into boys as a societal class ever since."The terrorism of Bin Laden," Tiger wrote in Slate, "harnesses the chaos of young men, uniting the energies of political ardour and sex in a turbulent fuel."The Boys of Bin Laden represented a microscopic subclass of extremism. Yet Tiger's essay triggered the broader, discomfiting question: Is there something in the makeup of young men that might make them especially malleable, or prime fodder, for Al Qaeda and related enterprises? In the wake of the recent arrests of five male minors among a group of 17 alleged terrorists here at home, the question yet again arises: why boys?[...]"Dealing with young males is the most difficult issue," he says. "They are hormonally deranged, or at least charged. They are all seeking somehow to establish themselves as potentially useful full-grown adults. They have a commitment to a kind of bonded or micro-corporate identity, which is very strong."[...]So being part of the group is part of our biological heritage. And status matters. "It's also part of the fact we're highly social," says Peterson. "It's probably particularly relevant for young men between the ages of 16 and 26 ... Having a group not only gives you an identity but provides you with distributed social protection."In discussing the emotional urges of adolescence, Marc Lewis, professor of human development and applied psychology at U of T, refers to the "chemical fuel of the brain" — its neuromodulator systems. "Your goals and plans and urges get charged up," says Lewis. "However, development of the prefrontal cortex, especially the more dorsal part, is not complete."What that means, continues Lewis, is that the "good sort of high-level thinking-ahead stuff" — planning, preparing, comparing different outcomes, adjusting strategies — doesn't finish maturing until the individual reaches his early 20s. The delay in the maturation of boys puts them, "to the extent that we know," says Lewis, about two years behind girls.Anyone who has witnessed the fearless, risk-taking, locked-in-the-moment, need-for-speed behaviours of some young men may recognize such traits. This at a time when they are their most physically powerful, most aggressive, most at the mercy of testosterone surges.So being part of the group is part of our biological heritage. And status matters. "It's also part of the fact we're highly social," says Peterson. "It's probably particularly relevant for young men between the ages of 16 and 26 ... Having a group not only gives you an identity but provides you with distributed social protection."In discussing the emotional urges of adolescence, Marc Lewis, professor of human development and applied psychology at U of T, refers to the "chemical fuel of the brain" — its neuromodulator systems. "Your goals and plans and urges get charged up," says Lewis. "However, development of the prefrontal cortex, especially the more dorsal part, is not complete."What that means, continues Lewis, is that the "good sort of high-level thinking-ahead stuff" — planning, preparing, comparing different outcomes, adjusting strategies — doesn't finish maturing until the individual reaches his early 20s. T[...]

"I pledge alliegiance to the North American Union?" What the hell am I talking about"Well, you'd better get used to it.If you think Bush was secretive about the Dubai Ports deal (which, by the way, is not dead; it's still waiting in the wings, driven underground by vigorous public outcry, until our "short attention span" permits Bush and Dubai to slip it over on us, just as the Doncaster sale to Dubai - you know Doncaster's, the British company that makes sensitive stuff for the Department of Defense - has been quietly slipped past us), just listen to the speech he will be giving today when he swears in the new "Trade Ambassador." The speech he gives will explain his policy of "easing poverty by expanding trade and demoncracy as an alternative to increasing foreign aid."It will be the most public disclosure made to date on the "plan."That report was given by Wendell Goler on Fox and Friends this morning, and neither Wendell, E.D., Steve, or Brian batted an eye.Why should they? After all, it was just another speech/ceremony at the White House, wasn't it? And doesn't increased trade to "ease poverty" sound better than out-and-out foreign aid?Sure, it sounds really benign. Don't get me wrong - I'm a huge fan of laissez-faire capitalism, a totally free market economy. I think that the best thing for everyone on the planet would be to have separation of government and economy, limiting intervention by government into the economy to those situations where the initiation of physical force and the use of fraud, or deceit need to be handled.But as one of my heros, Thomas Sowell, has pointed out, the free exchange of goods carries with it consequences that are far different from the free exchange of peoples. We still have to know who is entering our country, for what purpose, and for how long. We cannot, for example, willy-nilly allow criminals, terrorists, or people with certain kinds of diseases enter.We can and should permit the entrance into the country those people who have legitimate reasons to be here, people whose presence is required to support the increased economic activity generated by the free exchange of goods; managers, CEOs, clerks, programmers, researchers, laborers, etc. We should also allow, again on a monitored basis, those people who wish to enter as consumers of the increased economic activity - businesses customers, tourists, patients seeking medical attention, students seeking education, etc.This would be a great arrangement, and it could be easily accomplished simply by removing existing barriers created and imposed by governments. There is absolutely no need to create a new entity in order to establish a system of free trade.But this - the establishment of free trade - is merely the excuse, the disguise, being used by the governments of Canada, the United States, and Mexico to create a new mega-union called the North American Union, with free exchange not only of goods, but of people as well.Hmmmm... Well, maybe that's not so bad...After all, it sounds as if the three governments have merely decided to create treaties about mutual security and trade. And when you get right down to it, the opening up of trade opportunities sounds like a win-win situation. Beats the doo-doo out of having to pay out of our tax pockets for all the foreign aid we're shelling out now...But that's not what is happening, and what is happening isn't benign; free trade is the least important part of "the plan." What the three governments have in mind, have agreed to, and have begun to implement,[...]

This morning, we received an email that immediately caught our attention. It did not take long to decide to publish the contents of the email, which came under the subject "Remember Hitoshi Igarashi."It concerns the brutal murder of the Japanese translator of the Salman Rushdie book, Satanic Verses. At the time of the novel's publication in the late 1980s, the most evil man alive, Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran, had issued death fatwas on Rushdie and all who helped in the publication of his novel. This was not merely a declared war on specific persons, but it was declared war from Islam on one of the most important of the fundamental freedoms and rights, known in America as the First Amendment to the Constitution. Note the contrast with the kerfuffle about Da Vinci Code. A number of people, and not all Christians, just hate this book and rail at it. Some places have attempted to ban the book and the movie, which, of course, has created huge demand to read the novel and see the movie. BUT THERE ARE NO FATWAS AND NO CREDIBLE DEATH THREATS, unlike what happened to Salman Rushdie and his translator.When the Rushdie affair broke into news, Bush's father was President. If, as leader of the nation built on the Rights of Man, he recognized that any more than somebody being pissed off at somebody else in some foreign country, he never let on. Never once did he rise in defense of one of most vital of freedoms, by right.Islam showed its ugly face and uglier soul over the Rushdie affair, and we should have caught on fully about Islam right then and there, particularly after all that had gone on in the 1970s and 1980s. We certainly got the Rushdie significance, but it took a much bigger wakeup call to grasp the evil of Islam--that came later. Meanwhile, Hitoshi Igarashi was treated to the full meaning of Islam. To follow is his story which we received this morning:Unlike some other people I do remember that although Salman Rushdie himself was not killed because of the fatwa against him by the despicable Khomeini, several translators of his book "Satanic Verses" were attacked and the Japanese translator of the book was killed.Until recently I did not know the exact date he was slaughtered or even his name.He was murdered on July 11. I would like to make July 11 a day for worldwide vigilance towards the threat of islamofascism. This year it will be 15 years ago that this peaceful Islamic scholar was brutally murdered. So 2006 is a good year to start with this day.Mr Igashari was not an average victim of the islamofascists.The reason why I looked for Mr. Igarashi's name in the first place was in relation with the Danish cartoons. Via Yahoo I found this quote:"In Beirut, the leader of Lebanon's Shiite Hizbollah said the row would never had occurred if a 17-year-old death edict against British writer Salman Rushdie been carried out."An outrageous statement indeed but it was not the quote itself but what the news source added that appalled me most:"Rushdie went into hiding and was never attacked."The extremes of this wishful thinking approach continue to amaze me. He was never attacked?. He lived in hiding for many years, even Muslims suggesting to raise the fatwa have been beaten up and lost their jobs and last year the Iran islamofascists declared the death sentence on British author Salman Rushdie is still valid - 16 years after it was issued.The military organisation, loyal to Iran 's supreme leader, said the order was "irrevocable", on the eve of the anniversary of the 1989 f[...]

at AsiaTimesOnline Al-Qaeda caught terrorism experts and intelligence agencies around the world by surprise on Tuesday by naming Abu Hamza al-Muhajir to succeed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaeda leader killed in Iraq last week. In a communique released on the Internet, al-Qaeda said Muhajir had been unanimously selected by the Shura Council of the Mujahideen, a coalition of six Sunni insurgency groups created by Zarqawi in January. Some immediately speculated that the communique was a bluff, so obscure was the name. However, Asia Times Online can confirm, via sources in Syria and Iraq, that Muhajir certainly does exist. He is an "intellectual" intelligence commander in al-Qaeda, not a hands-on military leader like Zarqawi. As the new commander of al-Qaeda in Iraq, he will be more of a "political prince". Military strategy will be formulated by other veterans, such as Abu Aseel, 62, a former general in Saddam Hussein's army (who had been tipped to replace Zarqawi). Political strategy and day-to-day politics will now be handled by Muhajir - and possibly even by Osama bin Laden. This information is supported by Muntaser al-Zayyat, a lawyer who works with Islamic groups in Egypt and who is an expert on al-Qaeda. Zayyat confirmed that Muhajir was among the circle of people who knew Zarqawi well and who had worked with him closely since 2001. He is believed to have been born in 1965 or 1966 - making him about the same age as Zarqawi. He was based in al-Qaim, a small town on the Syrian border 400 kilometers northwest of Baghdad, where he welcomed new troops and gave them orientation courses on al-Qaeda operations and objectives. Recently, however, Muhajir moved to Kirkuk. If he is currently based in Kirkuk, it might explain the series of bombs that went off on Tuesday, killing 24 Iraqis and wounding another 40. Muhajir's nationality, however, has not yet been identified. Some speculate that he is from Libya, while others claim he is from Yemen. One Islamic source whose name was not given was quoted in the London Al-Hayat newspaper as saying that Muhajir was an Iraqi "who had contributed to jihad in Afghanistan". But this is strongly debated by those familiar with the internal dynamics of Zarqawi's al-Qaeda. Being a Jordanian himself, Zarqawi never fully trusted the Iraqis he was leading, fearing that they would abandon him in favor of a local Iraqi commander. He surrounded himself by, and delegated authority to, only non-Iraqis and his closed circle, which comprised Yemenis, Syrians, Libyans and Saudis. If Muhajir was close to Zarqawi, he would have to have been non-Iraqi. If he was hand-picked by bin Laden, however, he could be an Iraqi, since the al-Qaeda founder wants to mend the rifts within the Iraqi insurgency created under Zarqawi, who was bent on fomenting sectarian warfare between Sunnis and Shi'ites. Sunnis would welcome someone like Muhajir, especially the Sunni tribes, which played an important role in expelling Zarqawi from his former hiding place in Anbar, forcing him to seek refugee in the remote village where he was tracked down and killed by the Americans. By appointing an Iraqi as head of al-Qaeda in Iraq, bin Laden would thus be trying to win over the tribes. The lawyer Zayyat and other al-Qaeda experts say that Muhajir worked with bin Laden and lived with him in Sudan until 1995. After that, he moved to Peshawar in Pakistan and then to Afghanistan, before settling in Iraq with Zarqawi in 20[...]

Western civilization faces a threat on par with the barbarian invasions that destroyed the western Roman Empire in the 5th century, warns one of Britain's most senior military strategists.Immigrant groups from the Third World with little allegiance to their host countries could undermine Europe in a "reverse colonization," said Rear Admiral Chris Parry, according to the Times of London."Globalization makes assimilation seem redundant and old-fashioned . . . [the process] acts as a sort of reverse colonization, where groups of people are self-contained, going back and forth between their countries, exploiting sophisticated networks and using instant communication on phones and the Internet," he said.Describing the threats as the new Goths and Vandals, Parry said that along with the migrations could come "barbary" pirates from northern African attacking yachts and beaches in the Mediterranean within 10 years."At some time in the next 10 years it may not be safe to sail a yacht between Gibraltar and Malta," said the admiral, according to the Times.Parry, head of the development, concepts and doctrine center at Britain's Ministry of Defense, delivered the warnings at a conference last week of senior officers and industry experts.He is responsible for identifying the greatest challenges facing national security policy in the future.Lawmakers in Britain have made ancient Rome a serious subject of discussion this year, the London paper noted, including a book and television series by parliamentary deputy Boris Johnson drawing parallels between the European Union and the Roman Empire.Various regions of Europe, Parry said, are threatened by factors such as radical Islam, agricultural decline, booming youth populations, water shortages and rising sea levels.He believes that from 2012 to 2018 the current global power structure likely will crumble as a result of "irregular activity" such as terrorism, organized crime and "white companies" of mercenaries burgeoning in lawless areas.Meanwhile, nations such as China, India, Brazil and Iran will challenge America's sole superpower status, Parry said.The effects will be magnified as borders become more porous and some areas lose government control."When one thinks of 20,000 so-called jihadists currently fly-papered in Iraq, one shudders to think where they might go next," he said.The mass population movements could lead to the "Rome scenario," he asserts, referring to the collapse of the western Roman Empire in the 4th and 5th centuries when groups such as Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Suevi, Huns and Vandals flooded its borders.Rome eventually was taken over in 455 in an invasion from northern Africa by Geiseric the Lame, king of the Alans and Vandals.Parry estimates in Britain alone there already are 70 diasporas.Speaking with tongue-in-cheek, Parry said some of the consequences of this scenario would be beyond human imagination to address, including, "No wind on land and sea; third of population dies instantly; perpetual darkness; sores; Euphrates dries up 'to clear way for kings from the east'; earth's core opens."Rear Admiral Parry could have mentioned the Viking invasions of Europe, Russia, and the British Isles, Angles and Saxons into Britain after the retreat of the Romans, the Mongols, Turkik nomads into China, the Chinese into Japan, Europeans into the Americas, and the thousands of other migrations and invasions that have occurred over the[...]